Rare Royston Disc Turquoise Santo Domingo Necklace

This one-of-a-kind necklace was created from rare Royston turquoise, using rough stones that had been carefully stashed away for decades by the female Kewa artisan’s parents and grandparents—a family cache of beautiful old turquoise passed from one generation to the next.

Created by a female artisan from Kewa (Santo Domingo) Pueblo, the necklace is composed of individually worked Royston turquoise discs in subtle shades of sage, pale green, cream, and warm brown matrix. Royston turquoise comes from Nevada's historic Royston mining district and is particularly admired for the relationship between turquoise and its natural host-rock matrix. Here, those variations have not been eliminated or standardized—they are celebrated. Every disc has its own markings and tonal character, making this necklace inherently unique and impossible to reproduce exactly.

Transforming rough turquoise into such beautifully consistent discs is painstaking lapidary work. The stone must first be cut into small sections, individually drilled, and then carefully ground, shaped, smoothed, and polished until the beads sit together in an exceptionally fluid line. Traditional Kewa heishi-making follows this labor-intensive progression, with beads worked together on a strand to achieve remarkable uniformity. The slightly larger discs toward the center create a beautifully restrained graduation—a detail that makes the craftsmanship even more apparent when examined closely.

Two polished silver barrel-shaped accents interrupt the turquoise on either side of the graduated center. Rather than assigning them a specific spiritual meaning that may not belong to the artisan, we see them as an elegant part of the composition: flashes of cool silver that give the eye a moment of rest while emphasizing the earthy complexity of the Royston. Silver has a documented history alongside turquoise in Kewa jewelry, including museum-held necklaces that combine hand-worked turquoise, shell, and silver. Turquoise itself has a long and important place in Pueblo adornment, treasured as a material of the Southwest and frequently incorporated into Kewa necklaces.

Jean Marie personally selected this necklace after meeting the artisan who made it, and it embodies exactly the kind of work she loves to patronize: sophisticated without being predictable, deeply handmade, and unmistakably individual. She was especially captivated by the unusual muted coloration of the Royston and the extraordinary precision of the discs. There is no factory uniformity here—only the patient decisions of one artisan working with stones that nature itself made different. It is a singular piece of wearable art, carrying both the individuality of the turquoise and the hand of the woman who transformed it.

Made in New Mexico, USA

Length 19"